Ethereum Classic Successfully Completes Hard Fork Upgrade

The team behind Ethereum Classic (ETC) has successfully activated the Atlantis hard fork upgrade which brings additional functionality and compatibility with Ethereum (ETH).

With the hard fork completed at block 8,772,000, all software users are required to upgrade their clients in order to continue using the main chain.

Afri Schoedon coordinated the upgrade process and congratulated everyone involved for a job well done.

“And we are on Atlantis. Congratulations, everyone,” said Afri Schoedon during a public dev call.

This hard fork was implemented to improve security, add opcodes, precompiled contracts and zk-SNARKs, as well as introduce compatibility with the Ethereum blockchain, making it easier to collaborate between the blockchains.

Ethereum Classic was itself a fork of Ethereum following the DAO hack, which at the time split the community. While the projects remain separate, they still share many of the same goals.

While ETC Labs worked together with Chainsafe System and ETC Cooperative to go through with the hard fork, Atlantis was well-received and backed by the whole community.

Data shows that over 60 percent of nodes and over 75 percent of hashing power had confirmed the upgrade. Following the hard fork announcement, ETC has received support from an array of industry players, including major cryptocurrency exchanges.

ETC Lab’s president Terry Culver also stated that Atlantis is a step forward for collaboration with Ethereum. Many of Atlantis’ Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) have been on Ethereum for some time. With the improved compatibility, the two platforms can now benefit from a cross-over collaboration.

“The hard fork clearly shows we are committed to compatibly and working with ethereum,” Culver said. “What we would like to do is find ways to make the two chains support one another.”

The team behind Ethereum Classic said they are not finished and they will continue to strive to make improvements to the blockchain with upcoming upgrades Agharta and Atzlan. The results of Atlantis fork are set to be reviewed along with ETC’s future at the ETC Summit, scheduled for the beginning of October.